


Fear and Control

by caityjay



Category: Tithe Series - Holly Black
Genre: Established Relationship, Frottage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con References, faerie angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-11
Updated: 2011-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:50:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caityjay/pseuds/caityjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Corny is excited to (finally) have a (totally awesome) boyfriend. He doesn't want to think about... things that have happened to him in the past, but some things need to be discussed before he can move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear and Control

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for vague discussion of canon ( _Tithe_ ) non-con/rape. This takes place more or less directly after _Ironside_ , so obviously spoilers for the entire trilogy!

Corny had made sure to bring both pajama pants and a t-shirt with him when he went into the shower so he would be modestly dressed upon returning to his bedroom. He was therefore appropriately annoyed to find Luis lying shirtless on his bed, reading one of his manga.

Shutting the door behind him, Corny stomped across the room, snatched the comic from his boyfriend’s hands and threw it on the floor. “That was under the bed for a reason, you know.”

Luis was blushing, and shifted awkwardly on the comforter. “Those things are surprisingly hot, considering the main characters are nearly indistinguishable from women.”

“Until they take their clothes off.”

They laughed. Corny flopped down next to Luis and stretched his arms over his head.

“So.”

“Yeah.”

Luis made the first move, pushing himself up on an elbow to lean over Corny’s face. He kissed him. It was just as awesome as the first time (well, the second time; Corny didn’t like to count the first time). He brushed a clump of damp black hair back out of his face and kissed him again. 

“Have I told you you’re gorgeous, yet?”

Corny snorted softly, but the compliment heated his face marginally more than the kissing already had. He turned away, suddenly self-conscious of his big nose and knobby knees. “No,” he mumbled.

Luis’s fingers traced his jaw, trailing down his neck and onto his chest. “You’re gorgeous,” he said, kissing so Corny couldn’t argue. Instead, he reached up his own hand, tangling his fingers in the ends of the other boy’s braids, pulling himself closer into the embrace.

Luis shifted, pressing his hips against Corny’s thigh and causing him to suck in his breath. After a second of what might have been panic but he hoped was just nerves, he huffed it back out in a laugh. “Not teasing me about my manga now, are you?”

Corny’s heart thundered in his ears as Luis grinned down at him. “Maybe you’re just a really good kisser,” he said, the roaming hand travelling down to brush the front of Corny’s pajama pants.

Corny stiffened. He didn’t mean to, and he really didn’t want to, but he pulled away from Luis.

To his credit, the other boy snatched his hand away and sat back. “Sorry, I... you okay?”

Corny reluctantly pulled himself up, hugging his knees to his chest. He felt pretty damn stupid, actually, thanks for asking. His face was on fire, and his heart was beating so fast he was consciously trying to slow it down, sucking in deep breaths as slowly as he could. He could no longer pretend that the butterflies in his stomach were benign; he was definitely panicking. And he hadn’t answered Luis.

“Yeah. Well. No. I mean, it’s not your fault. Sorry.”

Luis still looked worried, and guilty. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, “I shouldn’t have—”

“No, really,” Corny interrupted, shaking his head hard before planting it firmly back between his knees. “It’s fine. I... I wanted it. Want it. I just...” He what? Was afraid he’d wake up next week and not remember what had happened? Or maybe that Luis would end up with a knife in his chest like the last guy who’d touched him like that. But neither of those things was ever going to happen. His head was telling him it was illogical, Captain, but his body wouldn’t listen. Luis wasn’t faerie, and he sure as hell wasn’t Nephamael. Nephamael was dead. Dead, dead, dead.

“We don’t have to,” Luis was saying. “We can always stick to kissing.”

“Kissing is nice,” Corny agreed, mumbling to his knees. He startled again when an arm slipped around his shoulder, but was able to relax back into it.

“I get it, you know.” His voice was soft in Corny’s ear and just the sound of it went a long way to calming his runaway nerves. “Faeries are brutal; they need to be in control. And it’s too fucking easy for them to get it.”

Corny grunted his agreement. He really wished that the conversation hadn’t turned to goddamn faeries, but he supposed it was probably inevitable.

“I want to be in control.” The whispered admission left Corny’s lips before the thought had even completely formed. But he quickly realized its truth.

It didn’t scare him as much as he thought it might.

“Okay.”

Corny blinked. Luis had settled back onto the comforter and was idly toying with the end of a braid. His good eye flashed with... _some_ thing. Something that made Corny want to _own_ him.

Before he knew it, he was on top of him, pushing a knee between the other boy’s thighs and locking their mouths in a hot, wet bond that was barely contained by calling it a kiss. Luis opened to him so easily—he was totally compliant. It scared Corny a little to realize how much he liked that.

The panic of moments before had vanished, completely displaced by a heady mix of lust and power as he ground his hips down onto the other boy’s. He felt and heard Luis groan beneath his mouth and sucked harder on his tongue, whether to try to silence or reproduce the sound he wasn’t sure. Regardless, the sound came again, and it went straight to his cock, which was already hard and trying to slip past the thin cotton barrier of his pajama pants. With a twinge of annoyance, Corny reached a hand down to fix that problem.

Even when he thumbed open Luis’s fly and roughly jerked his shorts down around his hips he met no resistance. It gave him a kind of thrill he’d never experienced. The brief flash of anger startled him, though, when the other boy put a hand to his chest, halting his movement—usurping his control.

“Just a sec,” he panted softly, then reached down to unbutton a cargo pocket on his thigh. A condom fell out, bouncing once on the mattress. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

Corny blinked, then grinned. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw a flash of uncertainty—or fear—cross Luis’s scarred face. He realized he hadn’t quite thought through this far, and it annoyed him a little that Luis had. But Corny had a plan to get one up on him again.

Sitting back on his heels between Luis’s spread legs, he finished pulling the other boy’s cock from his shorts. He shuddered at the feel of it in his hands, stroking it once, twice, to get a reaction. Luis squirmed a little, and when Corny glanced up he had his eyes squeezed shut and was biting his lip. Corny liked that. He was grinning again. He took the condom (reveling in the squeak of protest as he moved his hands away), tore it open, and rolled it down Luis’s cock.

Mismatched eyes flew open and the surprised expression on his face was priceless. Corny just kept grinning, lowering himself back down and pressing his body against his boyfriend’s. “Don’t know where you’ve been,” he growled into the other boy’s ear, biting down just this side of softly on the broken lobe. Luis’s hips bucked beneath him and another little noise caught in his throat. Corny began a slow churning rhythm of his own, latching his mouth onto the smooth, dark neck and sucking hard.

“Fuck,” he felt Luis breathe just above his ear as his hips bucked beneath him again. Corny was loving the hell out of this. He kept sucking as he reached a hand between them, taking them both in his grip and squeezing. Luis bit down on a yelp. Corny drew his mouth back with a slurp, marvelling at the ruddy dark splotch already blooming on the other boy’s neck. Then he was kissing his mouth again, keeping all those little noises safely to himself.

He pumped his hand, slowly at first, distracted by the taste and feel and sound of Luis on his tongue, but quickly gained speed. Before he realized what was happening, he felt the sharp points of fingernails digging into his back as Luis pulled himself up towards him, pressing against him so hard it hurt a little. He didn’t figure it out until his boyfriend had flopped back down against the mattress, head dropping onto the pillow and breaking the bond between their mouths wetly. It was Corny’s turn to swear. He dropped his forehead onto Luis’s shoulder and jerked his hand once, twice more before spilling over the edge, over his hand and onto their stomachs.

His left arm shaking as it was braced beside Luis’s head, Corny hung panting for a moment, suspended over the other boy before somewhat clumsily lowering himself to one side, reaching off the edge of the bed for the towel he’d brought in from the shower.

“Jesus fuck,” he heard Luis mutter as he scrambled back up onto the mattress. “That was a hell of a lot hotter than I thought it would be.”

Corny did his best to look offended with what little energy he had left. “You were expecting less?”

He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, exactly, in Luis’s eyes when he met them. He only really had half the set to go by, but he thought it might be uncertainty. “I don’t know. No. I guess I just wasn’t expecting you to be so... well,” he flashed a grin and a part of Corny relaxed that he hadn’t realized was tense. Luis rolled over, snaking an arm over Corny’s still-clothed chest. “It was a pleasant surprise.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Corny’s mouth as he reached a hand up to lazily twirl the ends of the other boy’s braids. A thought occurred to him suddenly, and he sat up a little, leaning down to look at his boyfriend’s neck. He brushed his fingers wonderingly against the purpling bruise he’d left there. _He’d_ put that there. And Luis had _let_ him. Hell, Luis had even _enjoyed_ it. It was all a little surreal.

“What?” Luis asked, frowning slightly and trying somewhat comically to follow Corny’s gaze.

“Guess this means you’re mine,” he muttered. He took a breath, pulling the other boy close to him, suddenly uncertain. “For now anyway.”

Luis looked surprised for a moment, then grinned. “Yeah. I guess.”

Corny supposed that was a pretty good answer.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to note that this is by no means a complete healing story. It's short, it's sexy, and it's Corny (excuse me, I mean Neil) beginning to deal with things that are going to take a while to deal with. Luckily, I think Luis is a pretty great guy for him to work through those issues with. And I think they'll be okay :)
> 
> Also, I wrote this a couple of years ago just after I'd finished the series. I really need to go back and reread it, now, because I just read this over and realized I could not write these characters today! So these notes and the summary were all a bit weird to do. But I liked this piece, and hope others do, too!


End file.
